HC Holds 4 Odisha Govt Officers Guilty Of Contempt; Verdict On Quantum Of Punishment Tomorrow

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has found four officers –  Director of Secondary Education and three district education officers (DEOs) – guilty of contempt for violating the court’s previous order and submitting false compliance affidavit.

The quantum of punishment will be pronounced on Friday (November 6).

On September 10, the court had summoned Secondary Education Director Pradip Kumar Dash, Jajpur DEO Krushna Chandra Nayak, Jagatsinghpur DEO Sapan Kumar Jena and Puri DEO Biswanath Ghosh to appear before it in person on October 28 in connection with the contempt petitions filed separately by five teachers.

When they failed to do so, the court issued a bailable arrest warrant and directed police to produce them on November 3.

But on November 2, the Court recalled the arrest warrant orders following an appeal along with affidavits claiming compliance with the HC orders related to salary arrears of the teachers.

After scrutinising the affidavit, the single-judge bench of Justice Biswanath Rath found that arrears and current salary had been released without any interest, which was non-compliance of the order in full.

They were also found guilty of filing false compliance affidavit.

The case pertains to November 24, 2016, ruling that the untrained Graduate Hindi Teachers after attaining 48 years age were entitled to the pay of scale and other emoluments as granted to their trained counterparts. The court had directed for calculation of their salary arrears and payment within three months.